Aftermarket Head Unit?

[heliconzero]

Having just completed a 48 hour i3 test drive, I found that I really enjoyed the experience and the car is a good fit for my daily commute.

However... I found the ICE to be pretty lacking. I use a Pioneer Android Auto head unit in my current car and I've really struggled with the BMW system - I think the navigation is vastly inferior, the controls unintuitive and I miss having the ability to play back my lossless audio and stream internet radio stations.

If I go ahead and purchase, how easy is it (or is it at all possible) to replace the head unit with an Android Auto head unit? I had a quick look at the ICE screen, but I can't even see anywhere that would be an obvious candidate to accommodate a double din head unit.

Has anybody here looked into this at all?

 

[gt1]

Like many other modern cars, i3 doesn't have a head unit.

 

[spinball]

First, I understand you are referring to In-car Entertainment System, but around here ICE means Internal Combustion Engine 99.9% of the time.

Second, my guess is it's nearly impossible to replace the head unit. Where would you even put it considering the i3 has a floating display?

Third, personally I think the navigation/maps are totally fine but actually entering destinations is awful. I am speaking from experience with the 2014-2017 models. The 2018 iDrive is a new version and I've heard it's much faster in some aspects. I find it easiest is to click the speech button on the steering wheel and say "online search" then tell it the name of the place you are going. This way you can entirely skip fiddling with the iDrive knob. You can also send a location to the car using the ConnectedDrive phone app, which is on Android and iOS.

Lastly, I believe you can play lossless (not 100% sure on codec support) from the internal 20 GB hard drive on i3's with Tech Package, or you can plug in a USB flash drive and play from there. I have a 64 GB flash drive in mine and haven't bothered with the internal drive yet.